"The Wire" on HBO

It was probably my favorite season.

The funny thing about Landsman is that apparently there's an ACUTAL Jay Landsman who doesn't even play himself on the show!! He plays another police, instead. I guess he wasn't Jay Landsman-y enough?

or actory enough!

he's plays the dude who runs roll call in the western w/the mustache

Correct.

i recommend the book "Homicide" for lots of good irl landsman stories

Lt. Dennis Mello.

I think S4 is my favorite both because the kids/education angle is particularly compelling, and also because I think it's really tightly constructed from a narrative standpoint. All these little connections come into play, and you see how characters' choices reverberate far beyond their circumscribed worlds. (I'd be more specific, but I don't want to spoil it for those still watching.)

ha. i like the fat porn hot dog guy better!

All these little connections come into play, and you see how characters' choices reverberate far beyond their circumscribed worlds.

Exxxxxxxxactly. This season especially.

I can finally read this thread because I finished the whole series!! At one point I accidentally skimmed over the words "the McNulty wake" and I spent the whole 5th season thinking he was going to be killed (or kill himself). Which, the way it was going, seemed extremely possible.

And anyone who is still watching who reads that accidentally -- ulp sorry. But this thread is full of spoilers anyway! What are you even doing here??

thanks laurel

The billion TV characters spawned by Landsman in Simon's book come to a weird nexus when Belzer shows up as Munch on The Wire -- he is playing a guy based on a real guy who is played on this show by a different guy while the original real guy plays someone else.

we were talking about the 4th season, which i stated above thread that i was halfway through. hurting chimed in, too. so you ruined it for both of us but such is life i guess?

Uerrawekjadghgh I thought about that RIGHT after I hit "Post" -- I really am sorry. But since I watch everything on DVD I sort of assume that ILX will be discussing CURRENT episodes and I just avoid the threads.

no it's cool--i may even forget what i just read, or maybe it will fade into the background. i'm old. anyway, he's in the background this season. . . and it's cool. i like the way he proudly drinks a club soda & lime at the wake

characters' choices reverberate far beyond their circumscribed worlds

The bit where Bubbles starts a chain of events that impacts the mayoral race = kind of amazing

(Don't worry, guys, all Laurel gave you there was an anti-spoiler about someone not dying)

i was taking my chances anyway even looking at this thread--and i hear that 5 kinda sucks anyway. looking forward to finishing 4, which we'll do this weekend.

And I guess I spoiled a Richard Belzer cameo, which ... nobody's ruining too much of import here

oh shit so mcnulty doesn't die? i read too fast, that's funny!

Part of the thing about season 4 is watching it with my wife, who teaches in the South Bronx, so the school/kids stuff is especially real to her and to me vicariously. But for her it must be kind of like taking work home with her.

Or worse like seeing the inevitable results that occur in spite of her good work.

The billion TV characters spawned by Landsman in Simon's book come to a weird nexus when Belzer shows up as Munch on The Wire -- he is playing a guy based on a real guy who is played on this show by a different guy while the original real guy plays someone else.

― nabisco, Friday, December 12, 2008 4:47 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nabs are you aware of the tommy westphall hypothesis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall#The_Tommy_Westphall_Universe_Hypothesis

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html

I saw this NYTimes article when I was in the middle of season 4. I literally screamed in horror when I read the first sentence. I avoid spoilers with a caution that others might find slightly obsessive, but reading the NY Times Week in Review section on Sundays was never a concern for me.

Needless to say, I freaked out every time there was a scene in a corner grocery with Omar.

That is maybe the worst spoiler I've ever read in print ever. First fucking sentence!

super douchey thing to do, damn

Wow. That makes zero logical sense, but wow. A lot of that hypothesis would appear to be based on the Belzer-as-Munch thing: I think he's the record for the same person playing the same character on the largest number of different shows.

That's an x-post, but putting a major Wire spoiler in an article about cigarette taxes is pretty wow, too

Sometimes when watching a TV show I get really bothered by the fact that the show take place in a world where the show and its actors don't exist.

i was about to say FRASIER CRANE but i noticed u said 'largest number of different shows'. still, it's 3 (counting a cameo) to 2, right?

xps

looks like munch is going to be on the french law and order too

Season 4 might even be my favorite even if the student stuff wasn't in it. I love the Marlo crime syndicate, love Snoop, love Cutty, love the big crime at the center of the season... all of the stuff with Herc was great. There was just a wealth of good stuff happening.

Sometimes when watching a TV show I get really bothered by the fact that the show take place in a world where the show and its actors don't exist.

― total mormon cockblock extravaganza (jaymc), Friday, December 12, 2008 4:14 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wow

Appearances and crossovers

The character has spanned over 15 years and 16 seasons. Along with 122 episodes & 1 TV movie of Homicide and 200+ episodes of SVU, (of which he has not appeared in 3 episodes of Homicide and 23 of SVU) Munch has also appeared as a character in episodes of other series:
Law & Order - four episodes: "Charm City", "Baby, It's You", "Sideshow (Part 1)", and "Entitled (Part 2)"
The X-Files - one episode: "Unusual Suspects"
The Beat - one episode: "They Say It's Your Birthday"
Law & Order: Trial by Jury - one episode: "Skeleton (Part 2)"
Arrested Development - one episode: "Exit Strategy"
The Wire - one episode: "Took"
The character is also slated to appear in an episode of Paris enquêtes criminelles, the French version of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Munch has been the only fictional character played by a single actor to appear on eight different television shows. These shows were on four different networks: NBC (Homicide: Life on the Street, and Law & Order franchise), FOX (The X-Files, Arrested Development), UPN (The Beat), and HBO (The Wire). Munch has also been one of the only television characters to cross genres, appearing not only in crime drama series, but also the genres of sitcom (Arrested Development) and horror and science fiction (The X-Files).
A muppet representation of Detective Munch appeared in the Sesame Street sketch "Law and Order: Special Letters Unit".
It has been reported in various places that Munch also appeared on an episode of The Simpsons,[1] but this is incorrect. The confusion likely stems from the fact that on Belzer's biography page on IMDB, a list of shows that have featured appearances by Munch is directly followed by a list of six shows (including The Simpsons) that have featured Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson, the characters originally from the program Cheers played by John Ratzenberger and George Wendt.

one afternoon during the s4 days, I looked over this dude's shoulder who was reading the ny post. same spoiler as that ny times article but as the headline!

Arrested Development - one episode: "Exit Strategy"

i have no memory of this!!

I think the spoiler happened in s5.

i'm sure i roffled hardcore when it happened, what the hell

xp

oh yeah, I meant s5.

SPOILER!

I found the article

i have no memory of this!!

Narrator: The depositions had been delayed, but the prosecution was about to get a Lord & Taylor bag full of evidence.

Detective Munch: We supply the glitter, the glue, the crepe paper and the ready-made template pages for you to decorate and fill out with... “My Favorite Birthday,” “Foreign Bank Statements,” and of course, “Shh! Family Secrets.”

Narrator: The scrapbooking sting had helped the D.A. gather evidence against people as diverse as Ken Lay, Oliver North, but ironically not Martha Stewart.

Detective Munch: So dig up whatever you can and remember, photocopies are not admissible as memories.

Tobias: Uh, sir, I’m going to have to go or our old family storage unit in Reseda.

Detective Munch: No problem. We can arrange for a helicopter to take you there right now.

Tobias: Wow, this is the best free scrapbooking class I’ve ever taken.

ah yes

and i did in fact roffle hardcore

I have the same problem Jaymc does, though it's all just dependent on how shows handle things. Weird example: 30 Rock bothered me last season when David Schwimmer appeared as not-himself (even though the show is set at a "real" NBC where Seinfeld was Seinfeld, so surely Schwimmer was on Friends), but it didn't bother me when Jennifer Aniston was on as not-herself (because ... she's less tied to Friends in my head than Schwimmer is?).

But yeah, it weirds me out when popular characters/actors refer to real things in the entertainment world but they remain fictional, and some shows are really fast and loose about this -- I got a little vertigo once from two characters on some show talking about a real movie that one of the actors was in, and just ... I dunno, it's just weird.

(Note: I don't get all geeky-angry about this, I understand that it's fiction and doesn't matter, but it's just ... weird, sometimes, to think about.)

you guys, dont ever see "jay and silent bob strike back" or your might have some kind of seizure

Haha.

I don't mind when it's done purposefully, just when the weird tangles show up on their own. Like a world where Brad Pitt movies exist but then Brad Pitt plays a guy named Lou, and nobody goes "omg Lou, you look exactly like Brad Pitt."

Totally.

NB: Marijuana heightens these thoughts.

This is possibly a whole other thread.

I have never had those kinds of thoughts with certain things (e.g. Curb Your Enthusiasm seems to keep it very clean?), but then I'll be totally fascinated by, say, the SVU episode where future-ADA Novak is on trial for raping a guy.

Why its annoying on 30 Rock... there are loads of Friends (in this case) jokes and references. In the first series, doesn't Baldwin go through a whole phase of watching Friends... and yet he sleeps with this woman who looks incredibly like Jennifer Aniston and doesn't seem to notice it?

i dont really care but i can understand why its annoying.